The flooring industry has developed easy-to-install wood-based flooring that is cut in such a way that it easily snaps and locks together. This flooring may be made from hardwood, laminate, or engineered wood products, such as medium density fiberboard and oriented strand board. A drawback of this type of flooring is that cutting the edges to enable the boards to snap together leaves exposed wood or wood chips/fiber that easily can absorb water, which can cause irreversible swelling around joints of neighboring boards. Thus, edge sealants generally are applied prior to assembling the flooring, often by the manufacture when the edges are cut.
A variety of sealant materials have been used in attempts to render the cut edges of flooring more water resistant. Some such materials include acrylics, silicone-based materials, polyurethanes, styrene-butadiene copolymers, polytetrafluoroethylenes, latexes, emulsified waxes, and paraffin-based materials. Some sealing materials provide flexible coatings, while others provide more rigid protective coatings, for example coatings that cure and harden when exposed to UV radiation.
Despite the availability of certain options for imparting water resistance to flooring, there remains a need for improved products and methods for imparting water resistance to edges of wood-based flooring and other wood products that are easy to apply.